Day 24, 12th September Lisbon Portugal

Arrived in port at 7.00am and had to be back onboard by 3.30pm, quite a very warm day.  Pete and Julie both headed up for breakfast then off to find the hop on hop off bus. (I decided to stay onboard as I had been quite unwell most of the night and didn’t get a lot of sleep) plus Lisbon is built on 7 hills and is very steep and hilly. They enjoyed the bus and saw lots of great sites they went to Torre de Belem which is also known as the Tower of Saint Vincent and is from the 16th century, it is from here the Portuguese explorers left and is also the ceremonial gateway for Lisbon. (I got to see this when we were sailing out of port its beautiful).  Next to it is the Padrao dos Descobimentos statue which pays homage to the Portuguese explorers from the side it looks like the side of a boat with the sailors all lined up. The national museum is currently being renovated and the archeology section is being updated to help it to survive as it is full of Portugal’s history. The building is stunning its very old and of gothic appearance with 2 spires at one end and a very ornate entrance with more spires and arches. Julie and Pete came back for lunch then we went and hired a really nice taxi driver who took us all over the city and showed us so much that you couldn’t see on a bus or unless you had a lot of time here. He showed us what is the second smallest road in Lisbon, to us it looked like a walkway as it was extremely narrow and stairs but he said it was a road, its wedged between 2 buildings. He took us up to a wonderful lookout where you got wonderful views of the town and also the water, we also saw some lovely little squares, a famous market that is only on 2 days a week that the people of Lisbon have been going to for generations unfortunately we didn’t have time to have a look around but if we ever come back would definitely go there, Lisbon is a beautiful city and again very clean.









 

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